Departing from this place on the 8th December, they came to the island of Anobon on the 16th, where they procured some provisions by force.  By the scurvy and fever they lost thirty men, among whom was Thomas Spring, a young Englishman of promising parts.  In the beginning of the year 1599, they departed from Anabon, steering for the straits of Magellan, being too late for passing the Cape of Good Hope.  The 10th March they observed the sea all red, as if mixed with blood, occasioned by being full of red worms, which when taken up leapt like fleas.  They entered the straits on the 6th April, supplying themselves at Penguin islands with thirteen or fourteen hundred of these birds.  On the 18th of that month they anchored in Green bay within the straits, where they got fresh water and large mussels.  They remained at this place till the 23d of August, in a perpetually stormy winter, and lost a hundred of their men.  The storm found them continual labour, without any furtherance of their intended voyage; suffering continual rain, wind, snow, hail, hunger, loss of anchors, and spoiling of their ships and tackling, sickness, death, and savages, want of stores and store of wants, so that they endured a fulness of misery.  The extreme cold increased their appetites, which decreased their provisions, and made them anxious to look out for more.

On the 7th May, going in their boats to take gudgeons on the south side of the straits, opposite Green bay, they descried seven canoes with savages, who seemed ten or eleven feet high, with red bodies and long hair.[47] The Dutch were much amazed at these men, who likewise terrified them with stones and loud cries.  The Dutch got immediately into their boats, and stood on their defence; but when the savages saw four or five of their companions fall down dead, slain by Dutch thunder, they fled to the land; and plucking up large trees, barricaded themselves against the Hollanders, who left them.  After this, three of the Dutchmen, in seeking food to preserve their life, found death at the hands of naked savages, who were armed with barbed darts, which, if they entered the flesh, had to be cut out.

[Footnote 47:  This is the first notice we have yet met with of the long-famed Patagonians; but their enormous stature in the text is very diffidently asserted.  We shall have future opportunities of becoming better acquainted with these South American giants.  Perhaps the original may only have said they seemed ten or eleven spans high, and some careless editor chose to substitute feet.—­E.]

This Green bay, in which they staid so long, was named Cordes bay after the commander.  In another, called Horse bay, they erected a new guild or fraternity, binding themselves with much solemnity and many oaths to certain articles, and calling it the Fraternity of the Freed Lion.  The general added six chosen men to himself in this society, and caused their names to be engraven on a board, which was hung up on high pillars, to be seen by all passing that way; but it was defaced by the savages, who likewise disinterred the dead bodies from their graves and dismembered them, carrying one away.